City prepares to deal with nuisance animals

BARC says one family has been cited 97 times for ignoring the law

Neighbors have complained over the number of dogs Jeffery Harold Jr. has owned.

Neighbors have complained over the number of dogs Jeffery Harold...

At one point, Jeffery Harold Jr. had 15 pit bulls. "I just love animals," he says with a shrug.

"He thought he was Cesar, the Dog Whisperer," said his father, Jeffery Harold Sr., grinning.

That's not what the Harolds' neighbors in northeast Houston think. They called Houston's Bureau of Animal Regulation and Care out to the house on Micollet Street - where there are now five dogs - six times last year.

Those trips generated 97 citations: For having four or more dogs without a kennel license, for the dogs missing tags or being unlicensed or not being vaccinated for rabies. And then there are the neighbors' complaints: The smell, the barking, the digging into adjacent yards.

"The dog was trying to get out so he ate half of one of the boards," said one neighbor who asked not to be named for fear of sparking a dispute. "I don't want nobody else's dog tearing up my stuff. I don't have a problem with dogs, don't get me wrong, but you need to do what you need to do."

Harold said he fixed the fence, but says he is in no rush to comply with all city rules.

Aiming to instill a little urgency in owners like Harold, city officials have rewritten Houston's animal control ordinance. The revisions, which go before City Council on Wednesday, are numerous, but the most useful to citizens could be a proposal to allow dogs to be deemed "aggressive" or a "nuisance."

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"The rewrite of the ordinance has some things that give us more tools to protect public safety," Mayor Annise Parker said. "We are adding the definition of a nuisance and aggressive dogs so that, before they've actually bitten somebody, we can actually take action, because we can't today."

'Dangerous dog'

BARC can do little to stop dogs that bark all night or repeatedly get loose through a shoddy fence, animal control manager Chris Glaser said, and officers typically cite owners only if an officer sees the dog loose firsthand; otherwise, prosecutors say the charge won't stand up.

The agency's only way to flag a problem animal today - a "dangerous dog" designation - applies only when a dog that is roaming free bites or scratches someone, or causes someone to think they are going to be injured. That leaves out dogs that hurt people on the owner's property, those that become aggressive when people walk by and those that attack other pets, Glaser said.

New labels may help

This is where the new labels come in. Using evidence from officers, neighbors and others, Glaser said, BARC could deem a dog aggressive or a nuisance without the burden of proof needed for a criminal conviction, and without the hearing process required each time a dog is deemed dangerous, unless the owner appealed.

An aggressive dog would need to be kept in a six-foot fence, microchipped, neutered and tagged. The owner of a nuisance dog would have 30 days to fix the broken fence or take the yapping mutt inside at night, for example, or face daily citations. Continued violations could result in the animal being ordered removed from the city.

"We've cited people as much as 15 times and we're still getting the problem," Glaser said. "This empowers the community a lot more. It just gives us a few more tools we can use that we can try to make it so owners are more responsible."

Councilman Robert Gallegos, who has focused on animal control, cheered the city's acknowledgment of an animal problem and attempts to address it.

"Whatever we do, we need to think it through and make sure whatever we do pass is going to help," he said. "A pet owner that's really not that great of a pet owner, if they fear the citation, will they just take the dog and dump it somewhere? That's my concern."

Not illegal anymore?

The new proposals will be undercut by BARC's inadequate resources, said Jane West of the Super Neighborhood Alliance and Jim Bigham of the Sharpstown Civic Association, particularly since nuisance calls are last on the agency's priority list. Parker favors a budget hike that would allow BARC to double the calls it can respond to, but even then the agency would answer only about half its calls.

"They can add it or not add it. The enforcement is not going to change," Bigham said. "Even if they doubled or tripled their ability to answer calls, those calls are still not going to be responded to."

In practice, Glaser said, officers respond to such calls every day when more serious calls turn out to be nuisances, and often respond when the calls are routed through the mayor or council members' offices.

Civic clubs also are concerned, West said, at changes that would remove a rule requiring kennels to be at least 100 feet from houses, schools, churches and hospitals and that would allow an unlimited number of dogs per home.

"That makes no sense whatsoever," West said. "It's like saying, 'We can't enforcement it, so we're just going to make it not illegal anymore.' "

Stray dog rule proposed

The alliance is working with city officials on an amendment that would force groups of four or more dogs to be housed at least 100 feet from homes.

Bigham, West and others have decried a proposal that would make a stray dog the property of BARC after six days if there is evidence of ownership or three days if there is no apparent owner; today, the ordinance as written allows an owner 30 days to reclaim a dog.

City officials, however, say the change simply formalizes the procedures already in use, and say officers try to contact an owner regardless. Clarifying the rules, they add, will give rescue groups more certainty and help more animals leave the pound alive.